Two long-running debates involving the supposed purity of science have flared anew.

A recent editorial in the UK’s New Statesmen that cautioned against the politicizing of science(using climate change as a prime example) kicked up a Twitter storm and has provoked numerous responses, including this one from a science policy expert in the Guardian headlined (probably to the author’s consternation): “Science and politics need counseling, not a separation.”

For an overview of the New Statesmen editorial and the heated, conflicting interpretations over it, see this post in the Guardian by Jon Butterworth. His takeaway from the New Statesmen piece is that it argues not for

the supremacy of science, nor complete separation between science and politics, but is an attempt to direct political debate to the areas where it can be fruitful.

At this juncture, I would be remiss in not bringing to your attention a must-read 2004 paper by ASU’s Daniel Sarewitz, which science journalist John Fleck helpfully reminded me of several months ago. The bottom line, according to Sarewitz:

In areas as diverse as climate change, nuclear waste disposal, endangered species and biodiversity, forest management, air and water pollution, and agricultural biotechnology, the growth of considerable bodies of scientific knowledge, created especially to resolve political dispute and enable effective decision making, has often been accompanied instead by growing political controversy and gridlock. Science typically lies at the center of the debate, where those who advocate some line of action are likely to claim a scientific justification for their position, while those opposing the action will either invoke scientific uncertainty or competing scientific results to support their opposition.

Science and politics are entwined, whether we like it or not. Case in point: The genetically engineered salmon now in the news has been stuck in a “regulatory purgatory” for 17 years. You think unsettled scientific questions are all that has held it back? Incidentally, 17 years is as long as the United Nations-sponsored climate change talks have been occurring, with little to show for them. How could that be when the physics of global warming has not been in question?

So we know there is no separating politics from science-related issues that have major policy implications. What we don’t seem to know (or be capable of) is how to debate these issues without biting each other’s heads off.

The other big argument waged by a vocal group of prominent scientists involves the assertion that science is incompatible with religion. This insistence by the likes of Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne is a puzzler. As someone who dislikes dogma of any kind and distrusts vested powers, I’m no fan of institutional religion. I’m also an atheist. But I see no value in making an enemy of virtually the whole world. What’s more, an argument that lumps together the Taliban, the Dali Lama, and Jesus strikes me as rather simplistic. The atheists who frequently disparage religion for all its faults don’t dare acknowledge that it has any redeeming value, or that it provides some meaning for those who can’t (or aren’t yet ready) to derive existential meaning from reason alone.

This sneering and strident approach by the religion haters is not just bad manners, it is puritanical. That’s what scientist Peter Higgs (of Higgs Boson fame) is getting at with his recent sharp criticism of Dawkins. In an interview with a Spanish newspaper that the Guardian reports, Higgs said this:

What Dawkins does too often is to concentrate his attack on fundamentalists. But there are many believers who are just not fundamentalists. Fundamentalism is another problem. I mean, Dawkins in a way is almost a fundamentalist himself, of another kind.”

This will no doubt incite the equivalent of hockey fights in the various atheist rinks of the blogosphere. Get your popcorn ready. That’s essentially what our big scientific debates amount to these days: Rip roaring entertainment and blood sport.

In one of his recent broadsides against religious faith, Jerry Coyne wrote:

Religion is not just the enemy of rationality, but the enemy of democracy.

I think that intolerance may also be considered an enemy of democracy. Fundamentalism, whatever its guise, is certainly the antithesis of science.

Networks are, by nature, authoritarian, and tend to focus stupid. Most align according to the peter principle. You would be hard pressed to find a network that does much damage to individuals or cultures.

Now some may claim that there can be evil networks, as for instance:
“Others, however, see al-Qaeda as an integrated network that is strongly led from the Pakistani tribal areas and has a powerful strategic purpose. ”

But please bear in mind that the above is kind of an oxymoron. Networks, almost by definition are not “strongly led”. Networks have members, not followers and leaders. A network may push out a member who does not conform, but it does not kill them.

When thinking religious networks think Quakers, Buddhists, Unitarians. Atheists are only really hostile to religions that are hierarchical.

Another way of looking at this is: Can you think of a fundamentalist network?

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That science and politics are often intertwined is a statement of how things actually are (and are likely to remain). I think a very good argument can be made that divorcing the two is generally better for the sciences.

That said, how they are intertwined today is not the same as it has been at various periods of the past.

You cite global warming as an example of how politics and science are entwined. In this example, the science is pretty clear and the politics come into play when those who don’t like what the science proves get into the discussion. It’s the same with “are people born gay?” The genetic science offers strong suggestions that people are in fact born gay but the religious simply don’t like this and so they make statements like “this is politics masked as science.”

And so the debate begins.

But the debate is important. It was not that long ago that “science” was used to “prove” that races are inferior or superior. This led to one of the worst atrocities in modern history.

I think the question each person needs to ask himself or herself when evaluating scientific claims is this: What is the outcome of accepting this claim?

In the case of global warming, the reasonable outcome of accepting this claim is that humanity and the environment as a whole is at risk. The only reasonable response is to take action to ensure that nothing we are doing is going to contribute to climate change. The potential outcome of failing to do this is to put the entire human species at risk of extinction (along with lots of other species). Fighting against a course that would avoid that is just idiotic.

In the case of “born gay”, the main outcome to opposing this claim is that the civil rights of those who are gay will be denied. Why would you be in favor of that unless you are simply a hateful bigot? (Of course, if a religious person accepts that someone is born gay then they have to struggle with their dogma, and no religious person is willing to do that. Better to believe an idiotic notion than to admit that the dogma is wrong.)

If, however, some scientific claim arises that allows people to oppress other people, it is re responsibility of any true human (atheist or religious) to stand up against it.

I agree that dogmatic atheism is just as wrong as dogmatic theism. If would could begin with humanism first, I think that true dialogue will be possible.

Until then, the various parties may as well just admit that they are no more mature than any of the cast of The Bad Girls Club.

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About Keith Kloor

Keith Kloor is a NYC-based journalist, and an adjunct professor of journalism at New York University. His work has appeared in Slate, Science, Discover, and the Washington Post magazine, among other outlets.
From 2000 to 2008, he was a senior editor at Audubon Magazine.
In 2008-2009, he was a Fellow at the University of Colorado’s Center for Environmental Journalism, in Boulder, where he studied how a changing environment (including climate change) influenced prehistoric societies in the U.S. Southwest.
He covers a wide range of topics, from conservation biology and biotechnology to urban planning and archaeology.